Read this powerful story about the value of an education from The Ensign Magazine, June 2011. It will have a profound affect on your life as you read about a woman who brought herself out of poverty.
“The Power of Education”
By Suzy Taggy Coelho Caldas Nelsen
“My mother grew up knowing nothing but abandonment, starvation, and poverty. She didn’t receive much formal schooling, but she knew the value of education and its power to change lives. In sewing together scrap pieces of paper to make me a notebook for school, my mother made one thing clear: education could help me escape a life of poverty.”
Humble Beginnings
“I was born in northern Brazil more than three months premature. Thirty years ago, there was almost no chance for a premature baby to survive in the cockroach-infested public hospital. The doctors told my mother that I would be dead within a few hours. I did not die. The Lord helped me survive.”
“The Lord wants you to educate your minds and hands, whatever your chosen field. Whether it be repairing refrigerators, or the work of a skilled surgeon, you must train yourselves. … You will bring honor to the Church and you will be generously blessed because of that training.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), “A Prophet’s Counsel and Prayer for Youth,” Liahona, Apr. 2001, 34; Ensign, Jan. 2001, 8.